The Minnesota Farm Woman

I have spent part of a long winter cleaning out cupboards, nooks, and crannies, and have come to the conclusion that I am a hoarder. I come by this naturally, being the product of parents who lived through the depression years. My genetics are a mixture of a woman who saved every plastic container and reused her foil to a man who seemingly never threw ANYTHING away, squirreling it away in attic and basement. I know this to be a fact, as I did a lot of the cleaning out and sorting after they passed away. Admittedly, much of it ended up in my house. After sorting through an old dresser, I dug out shiny metal belt and a celluloid framed picture of my dad’s Aunt Jennie, wearing the same belt with a purple skirt, circa 1940. Since I can’t seem to throw anything away either, I remembered and found an old photo of me wearing the same skirt for my sixth grade operetta, The King’s Sneezes, circa 1970. If memory serves me right, I wore the belt under the costume’s apron. My mother managed to hit the camera shutter just at the moment I closed my eyes. In 1970, when it came to pictures, you got what you got. That, along with a hundred other bad photographs of me in various albums is the story of my life. I like to look back on these, so I’m not ready to throw them away, although after I’m gone, I hope someone tosses the least photogenic pictures in the fireplace and keeps the rest. That means there will only be about five, but I sure will look good. I don’t know whatever happened to that purple skirt. It would have been nice to hang on to and store it along with the belt and two photographs: One of an educated, world traveller who was ahead of her time and who viewed the world with her eyes wide open; the other a gawky twelve-year-old who learned to open her eyes and travel a very different road with the prayers and the strength of the women who came before her.